Jim Butcher - Captain's Fury

The Aleran lines collapsed. Marcus screamed orders, dragged at wounded men, and had no idea how he managed to avoid all the Canim weapons that came screaming at him. He remembered felling one Cane that had leapt upon a badly burned Knight he recognized as Maximus, and then his weapon was struck from his hand. He fell on Antillar's wounded form, covering them both with his shield, and then there was a flash of steel, and Crassus was at his side, long blade in his right hand, and the curved, heavy blade of a Cane dagger in his left.

Crassus dealt two death strokes in as many seconds, driving the Canim back. "Inside!" he screamed, and rushed forward.

It was not a second too soon. Another delicate-looking line of violet skyfire descended upon him and exploded into a blinding sphere of heat and light. A second later it was gone, leaving a circle of blackened earth behind it-and Crassus with it, untouched by the fire, the bloodred gems in the hilt of the Canim dagger glittering in the lowering light.

A fresh round of cheering howls from the Canim raiders died abruptly as Antillus Crassus unleashed the power of the son of a High Lord of Alera upon their ranks.

Fire engulfed his blade and lashed out in a wave, washing over a hundred of the inhuman warriors. Somewhere, a balest hummed, but Crassus's blade intercepted the blurring missile in a shower of sparks, deflecting it. At his cry, a sudden vortex of wind formed, spinning the ashes and gravel and dust of the hillside into a blinding cloud, shielding the remnants of the Prime Cohort from the sight of most of the enemy.

Marcus got to his feet and seized Maximus by the armor. He dragged him backward, bumped into the wall, and was guided by the hands of other legionares to the opening. He retreated through it, shaking with fatigue, and fell to the ground in exhaustion.

Seconds later, Crassus bounded through the opening, and half a dozen Legion engineers rushed forward, laying their hands upon the stone of the wall. The opening quivered and began to shrink, and in seconds it was gone altogether, the stone of the wall smooth and unbroken.

Outside the walls of the ruins, the heavy, braying horns of the Canim began to sound.

"They're retreating!" shouted someone on the wall. "They're falling back!"

"Healer!" Marcus rasped. He turned to Maximus, and found the young man lying senseless, burned, and bleeding. "Healer!"

"Easy," said a voice. "Easy, there, First Spear." Crassus eased Marcus back and away from Maximus. "Go ahead, Foss."

Marcus watched them carry Maximus away. Someone guided his steps to one side and sat him down with his back against a wall. He found a mug of water in his hands and gulped it down at once, then a second and a third. Food came next, and though it was only plain, mashed oats, he emptied the bowl and licked it clean.

Only after he had attended to the screaming needs of his body did he manage to look up, gathering his wits again.

Lady Aquitaine, in her washerwoman guise, stared at him expressionlessly. Then she went back to passing out bowls of food, such as they were, and fresh water to the exhausted legionares , who were scattered all over the ruins nearby. Other domestics tended to minor injuries and brought replacements for weapons lost or broken in the fight. Battle-weary soldiers wolfed down food, gulped water, or simply lay in senseless heaps on the ground, asleep, as they did after practically any battle, much less one as strenuous as this one. Marcus felt like a mound of worn-out boot leather and wanted nothing more than to join them.

Instead, he pushed himself to his feet and started stumping around the immediate area, locating his men as the light faded from the sky. Of eighty spear leaders in the Prime, twenty-nine were still fit for duty, including himself. A quarter of his legionares were wounded and out of action. Another quarter were dead or missing-and in the savage battleground they'd left behind, "missing" probably meant that they'd been too badly mangled to be identified as the Legion withdrew. Another quarter of his men were lightly wounded and awaiting their turn with the healers. In the merciless mathematics of war, lightly wounded legionares were treated first by the Legion's watercrafters and returned to duty. Those more heavily wounded were generally stabilized, and then suffered until there were resources enough to get them back on their feet.

As he took count of his men at the healer's station, Marcus saw a lot of Alerans suffering.

He went around to the Legion's fifteen Tribunes. Three were dead. Three more were injured and out of action-including Antillar Maximus, whose injuries relegated him to the category of those awaiting additional medical resources. The tally of losses was sobering. The report from the Tribune Logistica was even more so.

Marcus found Crassus where he probably shouldn't have been-visiting his half brother, on a cot in the healer's tents, alongside all the other men too badly hurt to be easily put to right. The young man sat beside Maximus, his expression remote.

"Captain," Marcus said quietly.

"You were right," Crassus said without preamble. "We should have sortied."

Marcus ignored his words. "We're at half our normal fighting strength, sir.

More than a third of our supply train was cut off as they tried to make it inside the palisade, most of it our livestock. And the only well we can reach on this hilltop has been poisoned. The Tribune Logistica is working on a way of filtering the water, but it doesn't look promising. We've already gone through most of what we had in barrels from the wells down the hill, so unless we get some rain, or Tribune Cymnea manages a minor miracle, we're going to be fighting dry."

It was a death sentence for a Legion. A Legion might- might -manage a day without food, but without water, men would drop by the score every few moments, unable to fight.

"I was so sure we had to hold," Crassus said. "To tough it out for a few moments more. I thought that any minute, the walls would be ready, and wed stand them off, like before. I thought that we must have drawn the heaviest attack, that the Guard would be able to reinforce us. " He gestured at his fallen brother. Maximus was covered by light sheets, and Marcus knew that the healers had done it to keep dirt and grime out of the burns. "Max was right," Crassus said. "I thought too much, Marcus. And he's suffered for my sins. Again."

Marcus stared at the back of the young man's head for a moment. If Lady Aquitaine saw Crassus like this, she'd be hard-pressed to hide her satisfaction. He could be no threat to her liegeman Arnos's military laurels, like this.

It would probably never occur to her that in their current circumstances, there would be no laurels bestowed, no honors conferred-except, of course, the posthumous ones.

He walked around to the young officer's front, saluted, and slapped him sharply across the mouth.

Crassus blinked and stared at the First Spear in perfect shock. It hadn't been a gentle slap. Blood trickled from the young man's lower lip.

"Crows take you, sir," Marcus said quietly. "You are a Legion captain. Not some teenage bride mooning over her husband off to war. Get off of your ass and lead, before more men wind up like your brother."

Crassus just stared at him blankly. It occurred to Marcus that it was entirely possible that no one had spoken so to the young man in his entire life.

"Stand up," Marcus growled. "Stand up , sir."

Crassus stood up slowly. Marcus faced him, and banged his fist to his chest in another salute.

Crassus responded in kind. He studied Marcus for a moment, nodded slowly, and said, his voice very quiet, "Half strength, no meat, no water."

"Aye, sir."

"The Guard?"